When Tina had signed up for the Dungeon exploration, she had of course theoretically known what she was getting herself into. But knowing and experiencing was as per usual a completely different thing from one another. The experience cannot be compared to the simple theoretical knowledge of something.
Something she was finding out the hard way.
Since this was her first dungeon dive, the party sat back for the first few floors and let Tina handle the oncoming threats herself in order to let her get used to it all.
Tina's first encounter with a Goblin had been, suffice to say, a memory she won't ever get rid of, for all the wrong reasons.
First off, the creature was horrendously ugly. Combined with a malicious, bloodthirsty grin etched into its facial muscles, drool slabbering down the corners of its mouth and the sheer savagery of its every motion and you had a picture perfect representation for a little creep.
Secondly, Tina was able to sense the creature's emotional state through the Force, and the sheer level of hatred and bloodthirst the Goblin exuded had her completely shaken. She never experienced such raw desire for violence before in her life, nothing even remotely close to it.
As a result, she was stiff and visibly shaking at the sight of the Goblin, repulsed and shocked to her core.
However, being a Sith, something deep within her core seemed to sort of resonate with that hatred and anger the creature was exuding. It was as if she fed on it, because she could feel a growing sense of power within herself and an off-setting desire for violence, almost as if beginning to reflect the ugly creature's emotional and cognitive state.
And that was what truly horrified her. As a reader and fan of the series, she found these dark, emotion-driven powers cool and enticing, but experiencing them herself? Difficult pill to swallow, it was. As someone from a world where she and the majority of others were sheltered and safe their entire lives, this was a completely new beast to take on.
Matter of fact, she was so repulsed by it that when she struck out her hand, her disgust manifested in the form of a Dark Side power known as 'Force Rend', an ability that causes internal ruptures and severe bleeding. The tiny goblin was woefully unprepared for such a devastating attack and was torn apart from the inside, its skin tearing itself from the sheer violence and force emitted by the subconsciously activated attack, causing it to explode in a fiasco of blood and guts.
And just as quickly as it blew up, its remains turned to dust, leaving behind only blood and a tiny purple-ish crystal, its Magic Stone, as the only proof of its existence.
"WOW, what was that!?" Bell, Welf and Lili all shrieked at the same time at the gruesome sight, a mixture of awe, surprise and mild fear manifested in their tone of voices.
It took a prolonged moment for Tina to calm herself down from experiencing her first ever encounter with such malice, and the resulting defensive action, but eventually she realized what she had done. Force Rend was not an unfamiliar ability to her. though seeing it in real life rather than in a dumbed down, mellowed out game graphic was once more a whole other beast to get used to.
"I... think I..." Tina started, trying to formulate some manner of an answer, but the words would not come. She was still in shock from everything, falling flat on her rear and moving her hands to her chest, as if trying to hug herself. "I need a moment..."
Bell was the only one who immediately understood. This was Tina's first ever kill, and it happened in a particularily brutal and bloody way too. Few people wouldn't suffer some kind of mental backlash from the experience. He did not however know that said mental anguish was multiplied by Tina's ability to innately feel the emotional state of all beings. She was probably the only mortal, maybe ever, to truly comprehend and experience the sheer level of hate the Dungeon and its creatures bear.
"Of course..." Bell answered her reassuringly, patting her shoulder in an attempt at comfort. It seemed to work because Tina's form stopped shaking visibly, but she still needed some time to process it all.
After a few minutes, she felt like she was good to go, getting back up and glancing around, noticing that the party had taken care of any other monsters approaching, mostly hinted at by the splatters of blood spread around.
She took her sword into her hand and dashed towards the nearest prey, a lone Kobold who somehow got onto the first floor, where only Goblins should be, and bisected it vertically with a clean stroke of her weapon.
This time, the mental shock was much less profound, but still present, resulting in Tina stopping all actions aside from breathing for a moment, just... standing there, working through it.
The morals of this world and hers were so vastly different, it was simply not possible not to be shocked. After all, to this world, killing monsters may be an entirely different morality from killing people, but to her, where the line between both morals was much more blurred, it was her first and second kill respectively, regardless if those were dungeon monsters or sentient people. She killed. And it didn't disturb her as much as it should.
"I... i don't like this feeling. I hate it" she mumbled to herself, and she could feel her strength rising, her self-deprecation, disgust and anguish all feeding the Dark Side within her, empowering her with the ways of the Sith.
"Let's continue" she said loudly after a moment longer, gathering her bearings as much as the short time allowed her to. With an approved set of nods from the party, they descended further at last.
Each new dungeon kill desensitized her more and more. Each massacre of monsters empowered her less and less. Her psyche became a testament to one of the fundamental truths of the human condition: Everything is a question of habit. The more you do it, the less unnatural it feels.
Eventually, Tina started feeling a bit more normal again despite killing monsters left and right. She suspected that the Force was aiding her in remaining with an intact sanity because by all means she should be much more shocked and for a much longer duration, but she was not. Perhabs the self-empowerment was more likely feeding on her emotional state rather than simply siphoning it? A question to be determined for a later date.
As they reached the 13th floor, things went to shit. First, they got pass parade'd by another party, a small gathering of what seemed to be 5 or 6 people total, with one being carried away on another's back. A measure of desperation, most likely, surviving at the cost of other adventurers, themselves. A Landslide suddenly hit them along with an ambush of dozens of Hell-hounds, cutting off their retreat.
Tina was confident in the ability to moderately use the Force, but she has yet to properly practice it all. She still only has the theoretical knowledge and no hands-on experience with levitation, so she wasn't sure if she could properly dismantle the landslide. Worse, if she incorrectly lifted the many rocks and boulders, she could destablize the hill of debris and cause it to crash down on them all.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Welf got his leg stuck by the landslide, his shin broken. Again, her force powers could in theory help via healing, but she had no practice with them and was not sure if her abilities would work as well as they need to.
In short, they were deep in shit with no paddle, and any wrong move they make or any daredevil action Tina takes could backfire horrendously. So she sagely decided to not use Welf as a guinea pig for her abilities and instead kept solely to the practical know-how, being her weapon.
Their plan? Descend deeper into the dungeon. After all, Floor 18 was a safe zone where no natural monster spawns occur, and floors 13 to 17 have some rifts that allow them to skip a few floors at a time if they got the climbing gear, which they do.
So they decided to descend, fighting their way through the hordes of monsters seeking to wither them down over time. But their plan worked, seemingly, although it relied quite a bit on luck too. They managed to miraculously find the shortcuts they needed to safely descend all the way to the 16th floor, used Lily's leftover monster lures to gather them somewhere far away while using repellants to make them stay away from their group if there were too many to handle.
However, all luck runs out, and their last repellant went dry short of reaching the 17th floor, causing the monsters to suddenly turn their attention back to the party, causing them to begin a mad dash towards Floor 17. And with having to carry Welf due to his injured leg, said mad dash wasn't remotely as fast as it needed to be.
"Go, I'll slow them down and join you all later!" Tina exclaimed, being the one in best condition out of all of them. She drew her blade and lunged at a large gathering of monsters, causing an impact akin to a shockwave that blasted dozens of those murderous creatures away.
Bell, Welf and Lily saw no choice but to comply and did as she said, making their way to Floor 17 as fast as they could.
While Bell, Welf and Lily were making their escape, Tina turned to the horde of beasts with an expression that was a mixture of waryness and excitement. Why? Because she now had an excuse to properly practice her force powers. So long as she safely made it back, that was all that mattered, after all.
Meanwhile, Bell, Welf and Lily encountered more bad luck because as they made their way towards the way to Floor 18, the Monster Rex of floor 17, its de facto boss monster spawned. Much to their misfortune, it had been 2 weeks down to the seconds since it had been slain and its natural respawn timer aligned with their arrival.
The bestial, humanoid looking monster roared as it broke free from the confinements of the Walls of Sorrow, its spawning point, and began racing down the trio of adventurers, seeking to end their existence swiftly.
With a stroke of sheer luck, however, Bell, Welf and Lily barely managed to reach the entrance to Floor 18, descending its steep path and getting safely away from the Goliath, the floor boss of Floor 17.
Exhausted beyond measure, tired and wounded from their arduous journey, the last thing Bell saw before he passed out was the shade of a female figure approaching him. He begged for help, before he too passed out...
Meanwhile, back with Tina...
"I finally have a decent grasp on levitation and smash. Now, lets practice force roars..."
She was deeply enthralled with her practice, having gotten the basics down for two Force-based abilities. Levitation, to control other objects or people and lift them off, and Force Smash, a simple and crude ability to create an omni-directional shockwave by slamming her weapon down on the ground, enhanced by the Force.
And next was the ability to empower her throat with the Force to fire enhanced soundwaves through her mouth: Force Roar.
She spent almost an entire hour practicing, with the first 20 minutes being comprised entirely of mocking roars and taunts, agitating the dungeon monsters so much she had to cut them down conventionally lest they bury her under their numbers. But eventually, she figured it out and managed to employ it. Each consecutive use felt more natural, more powerful, less taxing than before. Each new use improved its efficiency, its speed, its range, the intervall between every use.
To master Force Roar in a matter of a single hour was talent so monstrously unique it broke past the level of godhood and ascended into the most powerful realm of all: Plot.
Once that was down, Tina decided she had a good enough grasp on a good enough amount of basic abilities and decided to descend to Floor 18.
On her way there, she encountered the still awake and enraged Goliath, trampling around aimlessly in its confined 17th floor until it sensed her appearance.
"A big target... that means very durable. Good. That way, I can practice some of the bleed skills..." She mumbled to herself and drew her weapon once more, ready to continue 'training' herself.
The ensueing battle was nothing short of brutal. The entire floor shook violently with every clash, the two figures exchanging blow after blow with unrestrained might. The Goliath lived up to its name, it was ridiculously tanky and possessed a modicum of self-regeneration as well, making it the perfect test dummy for some of the more offensive, devastating Force-based abilities in Tina's arsenal
Hours were burned away 'training' with the Goliath, who at one point seemed to realize it was nothing more than an oversized punching bag and tried to run away, only to be cut off and brutalized some more.
Worse, or better yet, depending on perspective, Tina seemed to have flipped her mental state and developed a small level of sadism for the creature. No doubt a part of the Dark Side's well known influence on the psyche of those that tangle with it, or maybe she awakened something deep and subconscious that was always there, waiting for the right time to appear. Either way, she not only has properly gotten used to killing dungeon monsters, but found a certain thrill in it that excited her to further test her abilities, hone them some more, engage in further brutalities.
However, during practice over stacking Force Rend's internal bleeding with Rupture's wound-induced bleeding, she accidentally damaged the Goliath's Magic Stone, causing the beastial creature to turn into a puff of smoke, dying instantly. The Stone being the only trace of it ever having existed.
Tina decided to keep the stone, bagging it and descended onto the 18th floor...